Premium
The Bangladesh Health SWAp: Experience of a New Aid Instrument in Practice
Author(s) -
White Howard
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
development policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.671
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1467-7679
pISSN - 0950-6764
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7679.2007.00380.x
Subject(s) - general partnership , swap (finance) , transaction cost , dominance (genetics) , government (linguistics) , business , database transaction , health sector , economic growth , public economics , economics , medicine , finance , health services , computer science , environmental health , population , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , gene , programming language
Sector‐wide approaches are being widely adopted as a new aid modality, incorporating government ownership, partnership and a move from project to programme support. The literature to date on their performance in practice is, at best, mixed. This article reviews these issues in the light of the experience of arguably the world's oldest and largest SWAp, the Bangladesh health sector programme. A positive picture emerges of an evolutionary institutional adaptation towards a programme approach, with positive systemic effects on government processes and a reduction in transaction costs in dealing with donors. There are, however, negative aspects, notably, donor dominance in ‘dialogue’, though with limited influence on the government's actual strategy.